“This is not making much sense,” Valaine groaned, sinking into an armchair.
Why had Maritza been so adamant about killing Valaine? Why were all the Darklings so hell-bent on taking her out? What was it about Valaine that drew their ire and bloodthirst?
Once more, we had more questions than answers. This time, however, we also got confirmation regarding the black-and-white braid as an identifier for the Darklings, and the undeniable certainty that Valaine was their target. They weren’t going to stop until she was dead.
The Darklings had a problem now, too. Because I wasn’t going to let them kill her.
Nethissis
Knowing that the Reapers were due to meet with Seeley in the palace library, I made my way back through the damp and dark corridors of the basement and passed through several locked doors, until I reached the ground level again.
There was a stark contrast between the above and the below. They were two different worlds, seemingly unaware of one another, separated by a thick layer of limestone foundations, dozens of circular stairs, and heavy wood and iron doors.
The gold guards did their rounds through the palace, and I followed some of them around for a while. Not once did they mention the black guards from the underworld. It was strange, and I didn’t know what to make of it. Were they all in the dark? Had Zoltan managed to build all of that without the Lord and Lady Supreme even knowing about it? At first sight, it seemed that way.
But still, I wasn’t convinced. Zoltan had people on his payroll. He went down in the basement labyrinth on a daily basis, and the black guards worked there in prescheduled shifts. They brought prisoners down there—such as the Rimians I’d seen last night—and fed them to the ghouls, which they kept in fortified cells. The entire operation was insanely complex, enabled by the use of death magic.
So how had Zoltan gotten away with this, and for how long had he been doing it? These were questions I knew I wouldn’t be able to answer myself, which was why finding Rudolph and his Reaper crew was so important.
For a while, I moved through the palace hallways, trying to listen to as many people as possible. I felt cold and alone, already eager to go back down to Seeley, even though a bunch of perpetually starving ghouls kept him company. I heard whispers about my death—the servants were particularly disturbed, worried there might’ve been more to my demise than a poisonous fox.
I stayed close as they cleaned one of the rooms on the ground floor, unable to stop myself. Curiosity had gotten me killed before. What the hell could it do to me now?
“One of the gardeners said they’re investigating,” a Rimian maid told a valet as they made the bed. The silky blue fabric spread across the mattress, the wind blowing in as the sun descended, visible through the large window.
“Who? The outsiders?” the valet replied, plumping a pair of pillows next, while the maid patted down a silk cover.
“Yes. Apparently, they don’t believe it was the fox,” the maid said.
The two stretched and spread the cover over the soft duvet, then dusted the bedposts and every other surface in the room with feathered dusters. My gaze was temporarily distracted by the twisting and dancing crude yellow and bold blue feathers. Their black tips resembled shoes that waltzed across the lacquered wood.
“Her neck was broken. That was no fox,” the valet grumbled.
“Who do you think did it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s none of my business. It’s bad enough we’ve got Darklings in the palace. Now they’re probably killing the guests, too. As if working here wasn’t an adventure all on its own!”
The maid giggled, but there was bitterness in her voice. I was missing something here. “You know, Lord Renfrey asked that I be the one to serve him tomorrow night.”
“You can’t.” The valet gasped. “You… You can’t.”
“I have no choice!” the maid retorted. “I can’t afford to lose this job. My mother will die if I don’t pay for her treatment.”
“Soni, please. Tell them you’re sick. You know what Renfrey likes to get from his servants. You don’t want to do this.”
The maid shook her head. “I don’t. But I’ll do it anyway. Just leave it, Baz.”
“I’ll replace you,” he said, frowning.
“And he will send you away and ask for another young Rimian girl to take my place. If it doesn’t happen to me, it will happen to another girl,” Soni said. “For what it’s worth, he doesn’t drink us dry.”
My stomach churned once I realized what they were talking about. I would’ve loved to know more about this Lord Renfrey, but I had no time left to investigate what was clearly one hell of a misdemeanor. An Aeternae was feeding on living Rimians, and that had to be a problem. Soni clearly wasn’t happy about it, but she was compliant, being threatened with losing her job if she didn’t oblige. To me, that meant compulsion.
An Aeternae forcing someone to give their blood was as awful as a vampire or a Mara doing the same thing. I knew Derek and Sofia would want to hear about this. Alas, I had a Reaper to greet, and I wasn’t going to get any basement-related information from these two. All I could do was wish Soni the best as I left them behind and made my way toward the library.
More than once, the back of my neck tingled, and I stopped to look around. More than once, I felt as though someone was following me, though I couldn’t see anyone… or anything. Occasionally, I slipped through walls and hid behind large pieces of furniture, hoping to draw out whoever was following me, but I got nothing.
With a doubtful heart and fears I simply couldn’t shake off, I kept moving until the library opened up before me, with its solid wood bookshelves and wide study tables and leather sofas. The afternoon sun poured through the enormous windows, while several Nalorean servants climbed up on ladders to light the candles in each of the chandeliers, in preparation for the evening.
Maybe I’d just been paranoid about being followed earlier. The nagging sensation had vanished, and nothing but silence and tranquility surrounded me now. Perhaps the paranoia came with the territory of being dead and having narrowly escaped consumption by ghoul…
Several emotions tested me, taking turns making their presence felt. The anger about my passing had not subsided, but it persisted, dully, as I tried to focus on what I could still do, even in spirit form. The heartache was permanent, giving me ghostly chest pains that I often failed to ignore. There was confusion… anxiety… the constant wondering about what I had done to have ended up in a situation like this.
But the most persistent feeling was not a feeling at all, but rather a mindset. I was determined to get to the truth hiding beneath the veils of Visio. The death magic. The ghouls. The entrapment of Seeley. Whatever the Aeternae—if only a handful of them—were doing here, it was not natural, and it couldn’t have been sanctioned by Death or other Reapers.
There were no other Reapers to speak of, anyway.
Except the eight standing now in the middle of the library, curiously looking around and talking to one another. I slipped past several servants and hid behind a bookcase, trying to get closer to the agents of Death. They were the first, besides Seeley, that I’d seen here. Probably the first to set foot on Visio in a very long time.
And there were no ghosts, either… though I could easily chalk that up to the ghouls eating them. Shaking my head slowly, I moved closer, trying to eavesdrop before I came out and introduced myself.
“Rudolph, we’ve been waiting for hours,” one of the four female Reapers said to one of the males.
Their uniforms were all black and white, but the styles differed. Rudolph and two other males wore suits like Seeley’s, likely from the Earthly Dimension. The others had tunics and asymmetrical dresses, all in the same color scheme—the colors of life and death. Rudolph tapped his foot on the marble floor. None of them were visible to the servants, who went about their business as if they were the only ones here.
“And we’ll keep waiting until Seeley shows up,” Rudolph replied, clearly irritated.
“He’s not answering our telepathic calls. What if something happened to him?” another Reaper said. “He’d be here if everything was okay.”